The Ghost of ‘Billy Bob’ at the Lamplighter Pub

by Greg Mansfield ·
Published August 8, 2016
· Updated September 21, 2016

First Posted: August 22nd, 2012

L.B. just emailed me the other day to share her story of meeting the ghost of the Lamplighter Pub inside the Dominion Hotel in Vancouver.

L.B. worked as a housekeeper for the Dominion in 2005. One of her responsibilities was to clean up the pub in the mornings. On her first day, she arrived in the pub shortly after 7:00 a.m., when it was still a bit dark outside. She soon heard the clinking sound of glasses at the bar while she was wiping down the tables. This went on for several minutes. When she finally turned around to see if someone else had walked into the pub without her noticing, she saw a man standing at the bar. He was dressed in a traditional chef’s jacket, white with black buttons done up on one side. He then darted around the bar. L.B. says that he was almost translucent and moved way too fast to be an actual person. She thought little of this, until a co-worker asked her if she had “met the ghost yet.” Obviously, she had seen the same thing all the other staff members had.

One of the bartenders reported being able to see him in the mirror while on shift, almost as if he was helping out. And, sometimes the ghost would appear as a white ‘swirl’ with a black dot where his head would be, moving around the bar.

The Dominion Hotel had an old employee who worked the night shift at the front desk for many years, who had nicknamed the ghost ‘Billy Bob.’ The name stuck.

L.B. doesn’t know whether ‘Billy Bob’ is still there, but says it would be cool if the staff reported more sightings of him, as the big mirror behind the bar survived the renovations that were done to the pub in the last few years.

A huge thanks to L.B. for sharing her experiences with ‘Billy Bob.’ If anyone else out there has worked at or visited the Lamplighter Pub and has had an encounter with its ghost, please share your story here in the blog.